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Sunday, April 10, 2011

In this lesson, you will learn how to tell someone that you want to do something. Recall that present tense verbs have the -masu ending. In order to change these to the 'want to' ending, drop the -masu and replace it with -tai.

Examples:

masu form

English

tai form

English

tabemasu

to eat

tabetai

want to eat

nomimasu

to drink

nomitai

want to drink

ikimasu

to go

ikitai

want to go

kaimasu

to buy

kaitai

want to buy

yomimasu

to read

yomitai

want to read

kakimasu

to write

kakitai

want to write

mimasu

to watch/see

mitai

want to watch/see

kikimasu

to listen/hear

kikitai

want to listen/hear

Examples:

Kouen ni ikimasu.Kouen ni ikitai.

Gakkou ni ikimasu.Gakkou ni ikitai.

I will go to the park.I want to go to the park.

I go to school.I want to go to school.

Now for one more twist. When you use tai with verbs that take o, you can also change the o to ga for emphasis if you want.

Examples:Ringo o tabemasu.Ringo o tabetai.Ringo ga tabetai.

I eat apples.I want to eat an apple.I want to eat an apple.

In the above example, the second sentence just means that you want to eat apples. The third sentence means that you want to eat apples as opposed to something else. It's not really that important of a difference so you can stick with just o if you're more comfortable with it.